


Dance Among The Stars

by PathfinderVidal (therutherfordwife)



Series: Among the Stars [1]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Background Relationships, Cancer, Commander Leyla Shepard, Cora Shepard, Gen, Mentions of Cancer, Minor Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian, Minor Kaidan Alenko/Female Shepard, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Shepard as a mother, War Hero (Mass Effect), What To Do When Your Mother Is The Savior Of The Galaxy, Young Shepard is a cancer survivor, bonding over brittle bones, overprotective mom!shep
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-08
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-01-30 23:03:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12663243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therutherfordwife/pseuds/PathfinderVidal
Summary: Commander Leyla Shepard is a hero to the humans of the galaxy. To her daughter, however, she's the unattainable standard that can never be met. Their relationship is a turbulent as they come, strewn with bitterness and anger of situations neither could control. As the galaxy falls apart, will they find a way to support each other, or will their own troubles tear each other apart?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Happy N710 everybody ^.^

Leyla clutched her husband’s hand so tightly she feared she would break his fingers, but she couldn’t stop. Terror was burning through her body like a wildfire, fast moving and all-consuming in light of what she was hearing from the pristinely clean and altogether too calm doctor seated across from them. Words like “cancer” and “stem cell transplants” and “radiation”. Things that should never be said in relation to one’s child.

The doctor smiled at the distraught parents sadly. “Take some time,” he advised. “Look at the options. But if you want your daughter to live, we need to be aggressive in treating this. We’ll have a team put together by this afternoon, and we can meet with you then to discuss the best course of treatment to get Cora through this.”

They watched numbly as the doctor left the room. Adam’s grip tightened around her fingers but he said nothing while she stared blankly at the far wall, mind racing. How did this happen? Cora was just a baby, a perfect, beautiful, laughing child. She’d started bouncing, was lifting herself, reaching for things. And then Adam had noticed the bruise on her thigh while he was changing her last week. The fever had come next, and when Cora stopped eating and became listless, they’d rushed to the hospital.

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Not that she was really processing anything past “leukemia” right now. Her whole life she’d been part of the Alliance; trailing behind her parents, living on ships and bases and seeing how the navy shifted and moved together against an enemy. The idea that right now, everything in Cora’s body was mobilizing against an invisible enemy, one that Leyla herself couldn’t fight. She felt . . . helpless. How had this happened?

“Do you think this has anything to do with eezo?”

Adam’s voice startled her out of her thoughts. “What?”

“Eezo. We’re both biotics, we both had secondary exposure incidents.” He finally looked at her, eyes full of fear. “Do you think this would have happened if we weren’t biotic?”

“No way to know.” 

They lapsed into silence again. With a resigned sigh, Leyla pulled her hand from Adam’s grasp and rubbed her face tiredly. “So what do we do?”

“Whatever it takes?” Adam shook his head. “I don’t know, Leyla. You should call your parents; I’ll call dad. I don’t - we’re too young for this. We need help.”

“That’s what the doctors are for, Adam. You heard him, they’re putting together a team to help us, to help Cora.”

“And how are we going to help her if we’re both gallivanting off around the galaxy on ships, Leyla? How does that help her? We’re her parents, she needs us.” 

Leyla could hear the fear and anger in Adam’s voice. It wasn’t directed at her, she knew; the benefit to marrying someone who’d been her best friend as long as she could remember was that sometimes, she knew him better than he knew himself. He was angry at their situation, at the helplessness he felt. “I know that,” she whispered. “Adam . . .”

“I know. You can’t stop.” He stood up and walked to the window, looking out over the London skyline. Leyla saw the moment that he made his decision; the way he suddenly relaxed, went from being so keyed up he could barely speak to practically rambling. “I’m going to call Anderson, ask for that favor he owes my dad. I can go into the reserves, stick around to take care of Cora. I’ll get that degree in colonial studies. And you can stay active, Leyla, and between us the benefits should handle Cora’s expenses. It’ll work.”

“Adam . . .”

“No.” He spun around and crossed back to Leyla, pulling her into a crushing embrace. “I love you, Leyla, but you wouldn’t be you without the Alliance. And ever since we had Cora, I think I understand. But I need her the way you need to be on a ship. We’ll be all right, Leyla. I promise.”

 

 _Adam._ Grief surrounded the name, a knife of pain brought to a piercing pinpoint in her heart where her husband used to reside. It still seemed impossible that he was gone.

 _He was a hero,_ they kept telling her. _He saved the hospital. If he hadn’t, thousands more would have died in the aftermath of the attack. You should be proud of your husband._

It didn’t help.

 _Cora_ helped. Her tiny, beautiful daughter, with her pitch black hair growing from her head, curled up against her chest. Ten years old tomorrow, remission as for her tenth birthday present. Remission, and a dead father; she didn’t understand fully yet, but she knew enough to know he was never coming back. She’d only stopped crying when she fell asleep. Adam was gone, her staunch defender against everything her body tried to do to kill her. He had been the one to stay with her through her treatments, to hold her when her marrow transplants and stem cell transplants left her weak and exhausted and she cried those horrible, listless tears of a child too mindlessly exhausted to function but incapable of sleep. Her last transplant had been done with his stem cells. And it had _worked._

Cora. Her baby girl. Remission. It still seemed like a miracle, despite what had happened. Cora was in remission. She was going to live, a long and beautiful life full of happiness. She was going to go out into the galaxy and experience things and find love and have babies and . . .

And who would keep her safe?

The tattered edges of Leyla Shepard solidified around that thought. Her best friend was gone, her husband was gone, but her life wasn’t over. She had her letter. She had Cora. Reaching with her carefully bandaged hand, she grasped her letter from the small table next to her. Six years she’d carried it. Six years she’d said no. For Cora. For Adam. She didn’t have the time, she couldn’t leave them, it was an honor to be invited but her daughter was sick. She couldn’t.

But her daughter wasn’t sick anymore. And the worlds out there, the galaxy around them was more dangerous than ever. Cora could go to school now, be a regular girl, have a regular life without her too-intense mother who didn’t know what to do with the child her husband had raised. She crumpled the letter and called the only number that mattered right now.

“Anderson? It’s Shepard. You heard about Elysium already? Yes . . . thank you. No. This is about the N7 program . . .”

 

“Hey Cora! Enough with the notes already, you’re going to miss Shepard!”

Cora huffed and stubbornly continued her calculations. All the better that her classmates thought her such a good student as to be taking notes all the time, but she was far too bored. No, her tablet was full of equations and theories. Only Professor Landrik knew that she had taken apart one of the quantum computers the Alliance had gifted the academy just to see how it worked; it was fascinating. And she could make it better. She knew she could.

“Cora! Come on! She’s here!” Daniel called again.

Landrik looked over Daniel’s shoulder from the rail overlooking the council chamber, giving Cora a sympathetic look. He knew how Cora felt about the hype surrounding Shepard. With a heaving sigh, Cora shut down her tablet and drifted to the rail between Daniel and Sanders. The others from their group were across the hall on the opposite rail, and Cora rolled her eyes at the way they whispered and pointed excitedly as none other than Commander Leyla Shepard, N7 of the Systems Alliance, walked into the room and strode confidently up to the Council.

Anderson was walking beside Shepard, and while Shepard only had eyes for the Council, Anderson’s roved the room until they landed on Cora. He nudged Shepard and whispered in her ear, and before Cora could duck out of sight, Shepard glanced over and their eyes met.

Cora froze. Should she wave? Should she smile? Say something? Before she could decide what to do, Shepard refocused once more on the Council without so much as blinking. Cora deflated a bit, uncertain if she was relieved or irritated. Surely her mother could have acknowledged her in some way?

Daniel nudged her. “Did you see that? She looked at me! Shepard looked at me!” he whispered excitedly. 

“Wow. Amazing, Daniel. You’re a real hotshot.”

“That was the most amazing moment of my life. Hey, why aren’t you taking notes? You’re usually glued to that tablet.”

She refused to look at him. “Not necessary.”

“What? Cora, refusing to take notes on a Council session? First time all week. What’s the matter, Shepard got your pen?”

“Striker! Pay attention! I’ll be quizzing you afterwards if you don’t pay attention!” Landrik barked.

“Yes sir.”

Cora gave Landrik a grateful look and turned her attention to the session before her. It was . . . interesting. A bit distressing, the way Saren flung insults at her mother and Anderson, but they could handle themselves. If anything, her mother just looked more determined to prove her accusations about the turian Spectre. There was something . . . off about Saren, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. She’d studied reports on the Spectre’s missions, and he seemed more antagonistic than his normal reports would suggest.

The Council disbanded after challenging Shepard to prove her accusations, and people started to drift out of the room. The Grissom students converged by the door, and Landrik was informing them on meeting times and reports due when a slight clearing of a throat sounded from right behind Cora.

She didn’t have to turn around to know who it was. Everyone else looked, and their eyes blowing up wide was all she had to see to know her mother was standing there.

“Professor. Can I borrow my daughter for a moment?”

Landrik gave Cora a sympathetic look before nodding. “Of course, Commander. Take as long as you need.”

Awe and betrayal mirrored through her classmates faces as she turned to face her mother. 

Leyla Shepard was the definition of intimidating. Every bit of her was sharp lines and wired muscle. Cora had overheard one of her nurses once say that her cheekbones could probably cut glass, but she hadn’t understood what he’d meant until much later. Shepard was . . . severe. Cora closed her eyes to steady herself as Sanders led the rest of the group away from the two of them.

“Cora. I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

It was probably the closest she was going to get to saying she missed her. “The political studies course is visiting for the month to observe the council and shadow with the ambassadors. It’s a new partnership program, part of Udina’s trying to get humans on the council. We leave next Tuesday.”

“Hmm. What are your plans for dinner tomorrow? Are you expected to be somewhere?” Her piercing steel eyes gave away not a single hint of emotion.

“I have to be at rehearsal, but I can do lunch. Or a late dinner, so long as it’s right after rehearsal so I’m not out too late.”

“Rehearsal?” Shepard’s eyes flashed. “Cora, I thought we talked about the dancing.”

Cora fought every urge to groan. She’d forgotten about that. “I promised to consider stopping. I never actually agreed to stop.”

“Cora -”

“Can I go now?” she interrupted. This was the last argument she wanted to have right now.

Shepard was silent as Cora turned to leave, but she caught her shoulder before she could take a step. “Wait, Cora,” she sighed. “I can do a late dinner. Meet me at the cafe in the Presidium; they’ll stay open for us.”

“They’ll stay open for _you_ ,” grumbled Cora.

“What?”

“Nothing. I’ll see you after rehearsal.” 

Shepard merely nodded. Without waiting to see if she had anything else to say, Cora ducked into the elevator and punched for the guest quarters before leaning against the wall and fighting back the tears. Not so much as a “hello” or “goodbye”, not a single word of affection. Of all the people in the galaxy, how had she been lucky enough to have a brick wall for a mother?


	2. Chapter 2

Shepard sat quietly at the table in the back corner of the small restaurant, fidgeting occasionally with the menu while she waited for her daughter. Rehearsal was supposed to end at nine; it was quarter to ten now. What was keeping her?

Would she even come?

She sighed in frustration and pulled up Cora’s medical charts again. No signs of cancer still, thank god, but she’d had three fractures in the last eight months. Two in her wrist and one rib; one of those wrist fractures occurring just three weeks ago. She frowned. Cora hadn’t been wearing a cast, or any sort of brace. If she wasn’t taking care of herself . . . Shepard made a mental note to bring that up during dinner. Then decided against it, for the sake of not starting another argument. But maybe she should anyway? Just to make sure Cora was all right.

No. Don’t bring it up, she decided. Cora was fine. 

Okay but maybe she should bring up her lungs? Was she using her inhaler? Taking her supplements? If she wasn’t taking her health seriously, they were going to have one hell of an argument no matter how badly Shepard hoped to avoid it.

A thump next to the table had her hiding a jolt of surprise and looking up just in time to see Cora practically collapse into the chair opposite her. Her daughter was, to put it simply, a mess; sweatpants and a loose long sleeved shirt with some kind of logo on the front, sweat-soaked hair pulled back into a messy bun, loose strands plastered to her forehead. She looked exhausted.

“You are not getting enough sleep,” Shepard said without a thought and instantly wished she could take it back; Cora stiffened, and Shepard knew that any chance she’d had on making this dinner pleasant had just been thrown into space.

“I get plenty of sleep,” Cora snapped. “I just finished rehearsal and we worked hard. I’m fine.”

Shepard sighed internally. In for a dime . . . “Are you sure you should be dancing at all? With your bones and your lungs -”

“Seriously? You didn’t even say hello and I’m already getting the dance lecture? Nice to see you too, _mom._ Catching up is so much fun. Let’s do this again in three years, ok? And maybe next time we can actually have dinner before you start telling me how all my life choices are dumb and going to get me killed.” Without another word, she grabbed her bag and marched back out of the cafe. 

Shepard watched her leave, mouth open but no words came to stop her daughter from leaving. _This didn’t use to be so hard,_ she groaned. 

 

It took six days to gather all the information needed to prove Saren’s betrayal. In the end, Shepard was named the first human Spectre and given command of the Normandy. The word being touted most often was ‘inspiring’. She was an ‘inspiration’, to the Alliance, to her crew, to humans throughout the galaxy. 

She felt more less like an inspiration and more like a glorified babysitter, to be honest. And a crappy one at that given that the one actual child she was responsible for hadn’t talked to her in six days, despite being physically closer than they’d been in almost five years. She’d hoped to have a chance to talk to her against before she left, but today was Tuesday and she’d said nothing. Cora should be heading back to Grissom, and Shepard was about to head out to Artemis Tau to hunt down an Asari archeologist.

Guilt nibbled at her. Cora’s exhibition had been the night before. Shepard had intended to go, hoping it would help ease some of the tension between them before they both went their separate ways again, but the investigation had accelerated quickly. Chakwas had mentioned going and had offered to record it for her; Shepard was grateful, but she also knew that it wouldn’t be the same to Cora. Oh well. Cora hadn’t known she intended to go anyway, so she’d hardly be hurt by her not showing up. Besides, despite her daughter’s ill-advised recreational activity, her physical limitations probably meant that she wasn’t likely to be particularly talented, right?

Right. Now if only Shepard could convince herself that was actually true.

She sighed. Parenting had been simple when Cora was a child, even in spite of the cancer. Treatments and her illness itself had often left her lethargic, and between her and Adam, they’d managed to give her as much time as they could. Since he died, though?

Not so much. She felt like she was missing Cora’s life but she didn’t have any idea what to do about it. She couldn’t very well stop in the middle of her missions, and they came so close together she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had more than a day off at a time. If she was being honest, she didn’t even remember what her daughter had chosen for her focus in school. What had she said after that council session the first day? A political science class?

_I’ll email her,_ Shepard decided. _Consistently. Damn the awkwardness; we can’t be awkward forever. I’ve done a piss poor job of being a mother since Adam died; it’s hard to be any worse, at least._

Yes. Okay. That was a plan. She could work with plans. Shepard made a mental note to email Cora once the Normandy arrived in the Artemis Tau cluster.

“Joker, you ready to fly out in twenty?” she commed over as she stepped into the elevator. “We’re heading to Artemis Tau.”

“Sure thing, Commander. And hey, did you get the email about the new QEC being installed? Because the tech just showed up and they’re waiting for permission to board.”

“Got it. Go ahead and let them on, just make sure they know they’ll be along for as long as this mission takes.” Hopefully they’d know to stay out of the way of the rest of the crew. Shepard rolled her shoulders. She couldn’t wait to get back into space; it was a far cry more peaceful there than stuck in this box of galactic politics and piss-throwing. Space was quiet, beautiful, calming. Well, with a krogan and a turian aboard, maybe not so quiet and calming, but definitely beautiful. She smirked; having Wrex and Garrus would definitely make things interesting.

The ship was buzzing with activity when she arrived. She made her way to the bridge and nodded to Pressly. “Everything set?”

“Yes, sir. You heard about the techie?”

“Yes. They aboard?”

Pressly hesitated, then nodded reluctantly. “Civilian contractor. Not that it’s my place to say, Commander, but she’s . . . awfully young.”

“Age doesn’t matter so much as ability. She wouldn’t have been assigned to handle our QEC unless she was the best.” She regarded the display of the galaxy. “Are the new crewmates settling in?”

“Ah, yes. Though I’m not certain ‘settling’ is the right term.” His mouth quirked as they heard the distinctive shouting of a krogan followed by several thuds. The entire CIC went silent for several seconds before carrying on when nothing else occurred. “Least it didn’t sound like anything broke,” Pressly grinned.

“It’s the little things in life. All right then, let’s get this boat on the road. We’ve got an Asari to hunt down before Saren does. The faster we get out there, the better of we’ll be. Joker,” she raised her voice. “Take us away.”

“Right away, Commander. Normandy pulling away.”

Shepard let out a long breath as they departed the massive space station. The Citadel was a marvel, certainly, but it was also very much a spider’s web. Too much intrigue and too little regard for the people whose lives depended on what went on there. It was a relief to be leaving.

The CIC settle quickly into routine, and Shepard and the crew spent the next several hours simply adjusting to her new status as commanding officer. Fortunately they all trusted her from her time under Anderson, or this would have been a much harder transition; no doubt knowing that Anderson was still only a comm away was helpful.

Speaking of, she hadn’t yet introduced herself to the QEC engineer. She turned to head towards the communication room just as the door opened and the engineer stepped out. Her jaw dropped.

‘Young’ was not a description that in any way could have prepared her for who walked out into the QIC. The girl was professional, there was no doubt about that, and wore the uniform typically given to civilian contractors currently working in an active Alliance vessel. But it definitely wasn’t her age or her outfit that brought Shepard up short; no, not that at all.

“Lieutenant Adams, do you have the specs for the old module? I want to check some compatibility before I start stripping out some of the more sensitive components.”

“Sure thing. I’ll ping them to your omni tool, just give me a minute.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant.”

“No problem. Let me know if you need anything else, okay?”

“Okay!” 

The girl turned to go back to the comm room, gaze sweeping the QIC as she did and coming to rest of Shepard. Her dark eyes widened comically and her face drained of color, a reaction Shepard was certain was mirrored on her own face. 

This was not happening. This was _impossible._ Who - _How?_

Shepard was going to _murder_ someone.

“Mom?” Cora whispered in horror.


	3. Chapter 3

This could not be happening. Everything had been great that morning; she’d already been packed and ready to head back to Grissom when she’d gotten the email asking her to upgrade an Alliance stealth ship. Just so happened to be parked on the Citadel, and it would get her away from her classmates for a while until they calmed down about the whole “Shepard is your _Mom?!_ ” thing. She’d called Grandma, who’d given her the okay, and had made her way down to the ship.

Nowhere and no one had said anything about this being her _mother’s_ ship.

Now she sat miserably in a chair in her mother’s cabin while the Commander sat at her desk, angrily conversing with whoever was unfortunate enough to answer her calls. Anderson, Hackett, Grandma. Grandma had been wise enough not to pick up, at least, as had Anderson; Hackett had not been so fortunate.

“I understand that, sir, but I fail to see the wisdom in letting a _child_ on board our ship! As her mother I am in even further disbelief that I was not told or even so much as asked permission to allow her to do this. No. No, _sir._ I understand, but I expect to further this conversation once the mission is over.”

Cora winced. She’d never heard her mother so angry. All those amazing stories about the things her mother could do, had done before, were brought sharply into focus in the face of her anger. Not that Cora had ever doubted the stories, but it was one thing to know them, and something completely different thing to understand them.

Shepard stepped out from behind the desk and stood considering her daughter, one hand coming up to pinch the bridge of her nose. “So. Just when, exactly, were you going to tell me that you’ve been developing top-secret quantum communications technology for the Alliance?”

“Probably when you ever asked,” Cora mumbled.

“Damn it, Cora! What else haven’t you told me about?!”

She tried her best to shrink from her mother’s wrath, but Shepard’s energy filled the small space. Cora felt . . . exposed. To be perfectly honest, she hadn’t actually ever considered that she would have to tell her mother what she was working on with the Alliance. She’d made her feelings about Cora being involved in the military abundantly clear, and she was so busy all the time it hadn’t ever come close to being a conversation before.

When Cora was silent, Shepard collapsed into the chair beside her with a heavy sigh. “All right. I shouldn’t have shouted like that. I was out of line. But Cora, _why_ didn’t I know about this? That my daughter is a quantum engineer?”

“You never asked!”

“I didn’t think I would have had to ask about something like this! You’re obviously passionate about it, I thought people like to talk about things they’re passionate about!”

“What, like you?” Cora glared at her mother. “You never talk to me about anything at all! You show up out of nowhere once every eight months or so and in between you never talk to me. Just pop in, yell at me for being stupid, yell at me about my health, and float away to go be a hero again. You won’t talk about work, you won’t talk about dad, you’ve never been interested in what I’m doing other than to know I’m not hurt and I’m not failing, and then you disappear again and I don’t hear from you for months. So forgive me for not having a lot to talk to you about when you’re _obviously_ not interested!” 

Her mother recoiled, and opened her mouth to respond when a knock interrupted them. “What?” she barked.

The door slid open and Kaidan stepped in. “Scans have found Prothean ruins on Therum. Joker’s bringing us in, you want us to suit up?” His gaze flicked uneasily between Shepard and Cora.

“Yes. No, wait.” Shepard pinched her nose again. “Give me a minute to get upstairs and take a look at things before anyone suits up. You,” she turned to Cora. “Stay. Here. You are not to leave this room before I get back, understood?”

Cora fought to roll her eyes. How little her mother knew her. “What about my job?”

Her mother glared at her. “We’ll talk about your job when I get back.”

Cora watched her sweep from the room and waited until the door came to a very definite close before curling up on the chair and crying. It wasn’t fair! Her mother didn’t care one bit for anything she did ever except for things that she deemed ‘unhealthy’, and the one time Cora thought she was going to get a few weeks on a frigate away from both her recently enamored classmates and her overbearing oblivious mother, she’d ended up landing right in the lap of the second. And she didn’t even want her working on the QEC! 

She set her jaw stubbornly and furiously wiped away her tears. _Mother might command this ship,_ she thought angrily, _but Hackett commands her, and my contract is with Hackett._ Standing, she straightened her jacket and set her shoulders before marching out of the cabin. Curious eyes followed her as she made her way back to the command center, but she ignored them. Let them wonder; if they wanted answers for their Commander’s strange behavior, they could ask her themselves. Cora certainly wasn’t going to give them anything.

The QEC was practically a haven for her, away from prying eyes. Cora picked up her tablet and synced her omni-tool’s schematics to it and settled into the routine of picking apart the old system. This was her third, after upgrading the Vancouver headquarters and Arcturus station’s over the last year. And this was a much smaller system in comparison; shouldn’t take her more than a week or so. Maybe if she stayed here her mother would forget about her.

 

 

Agitated voices eventually pulled her from her work and Cora eyed the door with irritation before setting aside her tablet with a sigh and pushing out into the CIC to see what was going on.

“Specialist Gladstone, I need the comms back asap! We’ve got a fast extraction coming up and we’re going to have one heck of a toaster party if I can’t coordinate this with the commander!” came a shout from the cockpit.

“I’m working on it, Joker, but the volcano’s interfering with everything! I can’t pinpoint through all the ash, I’m doing my best but you’re going to have to give me a few minutes,” shot back a man to Cora’s left. 

She frowned. A fast extraction from a volcano? They couldn’t be serious. She drifted over to the man, Gladstone. “Have you tried compensating for the magnetic interference? You’ll have to tap into the scanning system, but once you know the frequencies bouncing around the area you should be able to clean the signal for ambience.”

“No, I haven’t . . . I’m not sure how to -?”

“Can I?”

He practically jumped out of the seat, offering her his comm. Cora gingerly sat and took a moment to absorb the information on his screens before furiously tapping away. 

“Hey, who’s messing with our scanner? Gladstone, I _need_ those comms back _yesterday_.”

Cora ignored the pilot. He’d get his comms and his location confirmation as soon as she had it, but him yelling wasn’t going to make things go any faster. “Commander Shepard, do you read? Preparing for extraction, please confirm your position. Commander Shepard, do you read?”

Static. An unexpected bolt of fear pierced Cora as she tried to ignore the readouts that confirmed her mother was currently unreachable on an active volcano. How often did she do stuff like this? It wasn’t all this dangerous, was it? _Please respond,_ Cora found herself praying. _Please don’t be dead._

“Shepard. Location confirmed, get us out of here Joker!”

Cora swiped the confirmation to the cockpit instantly and felt the change in trajectory from the Normandy as they pulled into atmosphere for pick up. Her heart pounded in her chest; she didn’t want to see this, it was too close. Without a word she bolted from Gladstone’s chair and hid back in the QEC. Why was this so hard? And why was she suddenly so scared for her mother? She’d never been scared before. Shepard spent all of her time doing missions for the Alliance, had been a war hero for years and was N7 to boot. Cora had nothing to worry about. Her mother was always fine.

She didn’t even realize she was staring blankly at her tablet until a hand on her shoulder startled her half to death and causing her to whirl around with a small shriek only to see her mother, face oddly tender. The expression was completely weird, a small disconnected part of Cora’s brain said. Shepard was not tender. She was stern.

“Cora? What’s wrong?”

A strangled sound came from Cora’s mouth. “Is it always like that?”

One of Shepard’s eyebrows went up. “Like what?”

“Volcanoes and fast extractions and, and the shooting, and with you -” to her horror, her throat clenched with a sob and she felt herself start to shake. “I’m s-s-sorry,” she choked as her mother’s eyes widened in horror. “I’ve never seen - I was so scared, and the comms weren’t working and -”

Her mother’s arms wrapped around her suddenly, crushing her to her chest and for the first time Cora could remember since her father died, she clung to her mother and cried. “Oh, Cora. I’m fine, it’s ok, everything’s fine. You did so good with the comms, I’m here, I’m ok, everything will be ok.”

 

 

Cora sat quietly with her fingers wrapped around her mug of hot chocolate, holding far more tightly than was strictly necessary as she listened to the chatter around her. Shepard had dragged her down to the med bay as soon as she had calmed down, concerned her outburst might have been the sign of something more serious. And for once, Cora didn’t particularly care about her mother’s obsession with her health. 

She felt . . . drained. Which wasn’t entirely unexpected, given that she’d just spent a solid twenty minutes sobbing hysterically into her mother’s shoulder, but it wasn’t just the crying that had her feeling so strange. It was the realization that things weren’t entirely like what she’d expected.

Her mother had always been . . . remote. Someone far away who went off doing heroic things and came back on occasion just to make sure Cora wasn’t dead. But this? This wasn’t heroic. Well, yeah, it was somewhat heroic, but it was mostly just stressful and chaotic. And scary. Really, really scary. And Shepard had come back on board and had not only been totally fine, but hadn’t even yelled at her for not doing what she said, and then had _hugged_ her. And comforted her. And told her she’d done well.

“You know, you hold that thing any tighter and it’ll probably fuse to your hands.”

Cora looked up startled as a turian in blue armor sat across from her. “What?”

“Eh, sorry, I’m not the best with kids. Garrus Vakarian, C-Sec officer. I’m tagging along as part of my investigation into Saren’s illegal activities.” He held out a hand.

She took it carefully, glad that he kept his grip light. “Cora,” she said softly. Then cleared her throat. “And I’m not a kid.”

He eyed her carefully. “How old are you?”

“Fifteen.”

He laughed. “Kid, let me know when you’ve doubled that and I’ll consider upgrading you to ‘adult’. If you need any help with things around here, you can find me down with the mako.” Standing, he reached over and ruffled her hair before wandering off again.

Cora frowned after him; she’d never actually met a turian before, but that had seemed . . . unusual. She sipped her hot chocolate. A turian, on an Alliance ship. Not to mention the krogan that had nearly blown a hole in the hull not an hour after takeoff. And Adams had mentioned a quarian down in engineering?

Aliens and Alliance, and her mother had given her a hug. Today was too weird to think about anymore. With a sigh, Cora pushed to her feet and went to find her assigned bunk.


	4. Chapter 4

There are some things, Shepard reflected, that you just can’t quite prepare for. Prothean beacons, rogue Spectres, an alien crew . . . and hosting your fifteen year old daughter on an Alliance frigate. 

If this was any other civilian contractor, she would be practically invisible to Shepard and would have a bunk with the rest of the crew. When Cora had gotten up to make her way to a bunk, Shepard had reacted without thinking. “Where are you going?” she demanded.

Cora blinked at her owlishly. Biting her tongue to keep from asking when the last time Cora had slept was, she gently grasped her daughter’s shoulders and steered her to her own cabin and, for the first time since Cora was ten years old, put her daughter to bed.

Now she sat. There were lots of things she should be doing, of course. She should be checking in with Liara, and Joker, and look over the reports about Noveria but instead . . . 

Instead she sat at her console and watched her daughter sleep.

_She’s so peaceful when she sleeps,_ Shepard thought. The last several years, Cora had gone from being open and free to being guarded and closed off. When was the last time she’d heard her laugh? 

Guilt flooded thorough her. The first few times she’d gone to visit Grissom after Cora had started there, she’d come running and leapt into her mother’s arms, babbling excitedly about everything and nothing. The first time, Shepard had laughed. The second, Cora had tripped and broken her elbow. The third time . . . Cora walked. But she’d come in a tutu, and wanted to show her mother her dancing. Grissom had an arts program, after all. Cora loved ballet. But she’d looked at her daughter, new cast on her wrist. _No more dancing,_ she’d said.

It was the first time she remembered Cora crying after Adam died.

The next few visits all blurred together. Cora got taller (but only slightly), Shepard advanced through the N7 program. When Cora came, she didn’t babble anymore, and Shepard was never quite sure what to ask. So she asked about her health, her grades. When Cora asked about the Alliance, her missions, however, she didn’t respond. She didn’t want Cora to think the Alliance was something fun, something for heroes and glory. 

And the conversations stopped.

God fucking damn it. Shepard fought the urge to slam a fist into in console; she didn’t want to wake Cora. Looking back, it was so stupidly simple to see the mistakes she’d made, the way she’d pushed Cora away. She hadn’t _meant_ to, it had just sort of . . . happened. Except now that she knew what had gone wrong, she still had no clue whatsoever how to fix it. 

She rubbed her eyes. _You were so much better at this than me, Adam,_ she thought blearily. _You’d know what to do._

Cora twitched in her sleep and mumbled something before settling again. On an impulse, Shepard moved to the bed and gently pulled the covers up, tucking them around her daughter once more before retreating from the cabin.

 

 

“Late night, Commander?”

Shepard looked up from her reports of Therum in time to see Lieutenant Alenko take a seat at the table across from her, mug of coffee in his hand. “Won’t do you any good,” she ignored his question and nodded to the cup. “Chakwas switches it to decaf after ten.”

He gave her a startled look before glancing back at the mug and pushing it aside with a disappointed sigh. “Not surprising, really. Thanks for the warning.”

She nodded absently, eyes scanning her reports again. Kaidan’s presence was nerve-wracking in a wholly unfamiliar way; trying _not_ to think of the way he’d stumbled over his words on the Citadel made her heart flutter like it she couldn’t remember it doing since . . . well, not since Adam died. Part of her was terrified at the prospect of forging a new connection with someone that wasn’t Adam, part of her was exhilarated. And then another part of her was ashamed, for being selfish enough to want a partner in the midst of all that was going on, and especially for the fact that she’d be dragging Cora into any relationship she ever attempted.

It wasn’t an issue for today, she decided. She wasn’t even certain that whatever fumbling sort of attachment she and the Lieutenant were forging would last longer than the next relay jump. If things between them continued to grow then she’d start to consider what to tell Cora. A frown pulled the edges of her mouth. Would have been hell of a lot less of an issue without her daughter in such close quarters. 

Not that there was anything to have an issue over. Yet. _Reports! Focus, Shepard, and stop daydreaming about scenarios that don’t even have any basis to fret over,_ she berated herself.

“Shepard? Commander, you okay?”

“What?” She jumped back to reality and met Kaidan’s worried frown.

“Missed you there for a few moments. Are you sure those reports can’t wait until later? You should get some sleep.”

She dropped the tablet on the table and tried to rub the tired off her face. “That’d be a much easier thing to do without a teenager asleep in my bed,” she grumbled.

Kaidan shot her a surprised look. “The civilian? You let her sleep in your cabin? Didn’t we assign her a bunk?”

“We did, but . . .” she let the words trail off. What was she supposed to say?

“Shepard.” Kaidan leaned forward. “I’ve never seen you this _unsteady._ If you don’t mind my asking, what aren’t you telling me?”

Honestly, she didn’t really know why she hadn’t mentioned her relation to Cora to the crew. No doubt there were suspicions after her display in the CIC before Therum, but everyone knew she was notoriously tight-lipped about her personal life. Anyone who knew anything about her service record could understand why, though; her life had been dedicated entirely to the Alliance, and that dedication had publicly cost her her entire unit, her best friends, on Akuze and then her husband on Elysium. Not exactly events that inspired a lot of personal conversation. 

Adam’s voice drifted through her head. _Trust is a two way street, Leyla Jane,_ he’d whispered to her before pushing her up into the engineering ducts of the _Einstein_. With a small sigh, Shepard met Kaidan’s curious gaze and spoke softly. “Her name is Cora Petrovsky. She is a quantum engineering genius, apparently, and she turns sixteen in . . . eleven days?” Shepard frowned; she hadn’t realized her birthday was so close. “She’s the daughter of Adam Petrovsky, an Alliance reserve Marine stationed on Elysium during the Skylian Blitz. He died defending Illyria Galactic Children’s Research Hospital from the batarians.”

Kaidan nodded slowly. “I remember that, actually. Big news, right there with your fending off the attack alone until reinforcements showed up. They gave him a posthumous Medal of Honor, didn’t they?”

Shepard’s chest tightened at the memory, and her mind flew to the medal tucked in her locker in her cabin. “Yes. Cora was at the hospital receiving treatment for cancer, and Adam was with her when the attack started. He didn’t die just saving the hospital, he died saving his daughter.”

A long pause. “Not that this isn’t meaningful, Commander, but forgive me if I don’t understand where you’re going with this.”

She sighed. “I’d known Adam since we were children. We both met while our parents were serving on the _Einstein._ We enlisted together and married just after basic training.” Kaidan’s eyes widened as he put the pieces together. “Cora is my daughter. And until this morning, I thought she was a decent student at Grissom Academy studying political science.”

He let out a low whistle. “Well that’s . . . that’s something, Shepard. I had no idea you’d been married, let alone had a _kid_.”

“Technically the information is classified. You won’t find anything about her in my personal file; N7’s are well known to the public, and because of the nature of our missions it’s unwise to have personal information known to the public. One of the first N7’s was C6’d after his family was killed by turians on Shanxi, and it was decided that it was safer to protect our families and ourselves from potential conflicts of interest or sheer psychotic breaks.” She rubbed her eyes with both hands. A psychotic break seemed less and less like a problem in the face of several weeks of having her daughter on board her ship.

Kaidan nodded slowly. “I guess that makes sense. Wow, Shepard. I can’t believe they put her on the ship.”

“I can’t either.”

“Hey, look. I’m on bridge duty tonight, until 0600. If you want, you can use my pod until then. Don’t take this the wrong way, Shepard, but you’ve had a hell of a day and you look like you could use the rest.”

She looked at him wearily. “I can’t take your sleeping pod, Kaidan.”

“Why not? I’m not using it. I’ve got bridge duty, remember?”

Something in his eyes, the eagerness with which he offered his pod filled her chest with warmth. She _had_ nearly been blown by a volcano that morning . . . “All right. But just for tonight,” she insisted. “I’ll have someone pull the extra cots out of the bay tomorrow. Can’t be putting my best biotic out of bed every night or people will talk,” she winked at him.

“Well if they’re going to talk, maybe we should give them something to talk about,” Kaidan said with a grin before his brain seemed to catch up with his mouth and he flushed crimson. “I’m sorry, Commander, I didn’t mean to -”

“Don’t worry about it, Lieutenant,” Shepard cut him off, face undoubtedly as red as his. She pushed up from the table and made her way to his pod. Just as she was getting in, she turned to look back at him and spoke before she could chicken out replied. “And you’re right, Alenko. Maybe we should give them something real to talk about.”

The last thing she saw before the pod enclosed her was Kaidan’s wide eyes.

 

 

“Breathe, Shepard. Nice and slow. Steady. No, don’t hold your breath, just keep it slow and steady. Good. Now listen to your heartbeat. Visualize the target, wait for that moment between heartbeats, _breathe_ , and . . . Yes!” 

Garrus thumped her on the back in pride as her bullet pierced center of their makeshift target. A dedicated vanguard, Shepard had insisted the turian help her hone her long-range weapon skills, especially after they’d been pinned down on Therum and neither her biotics or her shotgun had done her a lick of good. She could handle a rifle, of course, but Shepard was never content to simply ‘handle’ anything; decent was not good enough. N7’s were the best of humanity, and now as a Spectre she was expected to be the best of the galaxy.

Expectation. Not something that ever fazed her, she knew the limits of what she was capable of. The gift that made her exceptional, she’d decided, was her ability to discern with an uncanny amount of accuracy exactly what she was capable of and then perform based on those discernments. Many things were challenging, but challenges were to be overcome, obstacles to mount and defeat and each one propelled her over the next. The trick was not getting tripped up along the way, except in this case, the only thing tripping her was herself.

She hadn’t let herself fall in years.

That self-determination saw a small tug of her lips upward in satisfaction. It was just one shot, but everything began with a first step. One perfect shot would lead to another, would lead to another and soon they would be happening all the time. She reloaded and set herself for another shot when a burst of laughter drifted across the bay and her shot pulled left.

Garrus snorted a laugh at her distraction but Shepard paid him no mind as her gaze swept the bay for the source of that laugh. It had been so long since she’d heard it . . .

There. Cora sat easily on the floor next to where the quarian girl, Tali, had set herself up by the engine core. Tali was gesticulating wildly and Shepard could hear the energy in her voice even though she couldn’t tell what was being said from this far away. Whatever story she was telling, Cora was clutching her sides in laughter and had had to set aside her tablet for fear of dropping it. As she was watching Wrex called out something to the two of them and suddenly both girls were positively in stitches.

Shepard stared in wonder. She’d never seen Cora so happy. Was she like this all the time? Was it just being around her mother that made her seem so surly all the time? 

What she wouldn’t give to have Cora be this happy all the time. With a sigh and a nod to Garrus, Shepard set aside her rifle and went to check their course to Feros.


End file.
